


Inshallah

by Telesilla



Category: Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-05
Updated: 2005-09-05
Packaged: 2017-10-06 01:25:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telesilla/pseuds/Telesilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Godfrey of Ibelin really isn't cut out for spying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inshallah

Although the peace is fragile, Christians are welcome in Damascus. Some Christians at least; Godfrey is fairly certain that if he's identified it will go badly for him. Fortunately for him, even Christians in this part of the world wear desert garb, and so Godfrey can hide his most distinguishing feature under a fold of cloth draped across his face. _It's a shame my nose is so well known._

He knows that he can't masquerade as a Saracen -- although he does speak Arabic, his accent is atrocious -- but he can blend in with the Christian merchants and caravan guards who pay their taxes and live relatively good lives in Damascus. And he can listen, which is why he's here.

* * *

"We have spies," Tiberias had told him. "Saracen spies who aren't so damn tall and don't have such big...."

"Noses?" Godfrey had asked, doing his best to look innocent.

"Egos," Tiberias had replied, his tone as dry as the desert air.

"As always, your wit defeats me."

"Then it is only fair, for you will do this anyway," Tiberias had said with a sigh. "And so, as always, your impetuosity will overrule my caution."

"Is that not a good thing?" Godfrey had asked, sliding his foot along the length of Tiberias' bare thigh and watching the way the water of the bath they shared rippled with the motion. Once again, Godfrey's boldness was rewarded.

* * *

Now, as he sits in a shaded spot in the marketplace eating grilled lamb and listening to several Saracen cavalry men discuss their horses, Godfrey finds himself wishing he had listened to his friend. He's not learned anything of value here and he's sure he lacks the subtlety needed to be a good spy. Tiberias could probably do it, but Tiberias is too wise to come here on his own.

 

_Nor should he,_ Godfrey thinks, tossing aside the wooden skewer that had held his dinner. _This was a fool's errand and he'll just laugh at me when I tell him so._ The thought that maybe that's why he did this in the first place occurs to Godfrey and it's not such a bad one. There are, after all, so few things for any of them to laugh about these days. as they struggle to keep the peace in the name of a boy king with leprosy.

As he walks back to the stable where he's paid for a stall for both himself and his horse, he's so busy with his thoughts that he doesn't notice the three cavalry men following him. It's only as he ducks into a small alley way and still hears footsteps behind him that he realizes he's made some kind of mistake. _Or perhaps they merely seek to rob me,_ he thinks, wishing he had his sword instead of the dagger in his boot and the one inside his robe.

_I also have the strength God gave me,_ he thinks, slowing his pace. In spite of the danger of the situation, in spite of the fact that the strength God gave him may not be enough, he can feel his heart beating faster, feel his blood starting to heat up. He feels alive at times like this and he knows that this sort of striving, this matching of his strength against others in any way he can, is one of the things he was born to do.

Just before the men reach Godfrey, he turns and rushes them, crashing into the two men in front. Before either of them can regain their balance he's slammed a fist into the stomach of one of them and then shoving his knee into the man's face as he doubles over. With a quick spin on his heel, Godfrey slams his forearm into the throat of the second man so hard that the man crashes into the wall next to him and slides to the ground.

It's just in time; out of the corner of his eye, Godfrey can see light shining off the blade of the curved dagger the third man is pulling out of his sash. Although in a sword fight Godfrey prefers the high stance, he likes to go low in a knife fight, and so he crouches a little as he draws his own dagger.

The man comes in faster than expected and as Godfrey ducks, he loses his footing and slips. As he starts to go down, his opponent moves in close, dagger raised. Desperately, Godfrey shifts his dagger to his left hand and thrusts up, feeling the unique sensation of a blade moving through cloth and into flesh. His opponent staggers and clutches his side, cursing weakly in Arabic.

"What do you expect?" Godfrey replies in the same language. "You attacked an innocent man in an alley."

"If the Baron of Ibelin wishes to make an _innocent_ visit to Damascus," the man says, leaning against the wall, his hand still around the dagger protruding low on his side. "It could have been arranged."

"Jesu," Godfrey mutters, pulling his smaller knife out of his boot. "Now I have to kill you. And them too."

"I think you might have killed me already," the man says, looking down at the knife. "Which I suspect you will soon deeply regret." He turns a little and the fading light catches his face, showing a nose even more known in the Holy Land than Godfrey's.

Now it's Godfrey's turn to curse in his own language, the French sounding out of place in this dusty alleyway. "Come with me," he says urgently to Saladin. "I might be able to help you."

The backdoor to the stable is just a few doors down and Godfrey slips in, helping Saladin down the step and keeping him from slipping on the straw scattered on the floor. "Sit," he says brusquely, too concerned about the other man's injuries to waste time on the courtesy due a king.

A moment later, his small lantern lit, Godfrey cuts Saladin's clothes away from the knife, wanting to see the wound before he just pulls the blade out. "I think it's ... ah ... gone into the bone of my hip," Saladin says. "When I tried to pull it, it resisted."

"A rib would have been worse," Godfrey says, reaching into his saddle bag for his last clean shirt and a wine skin. "Here, you should...." he begins to say, holding out the flask. "For medicinal purposes. Is it allowed?"

"We use hashish," Saladin replies, his face tight with pain. "In extreme cases. I can bear this without help."

"What is it about kings," Godfrey asks, as he tears up his shirt to make a bandage, "that makes you all so stubborn?"

"When you broke your nose," Saladin asks, "did you take wine while they tried to reset it?"

"The night I broke my nose, I didn't need any more wine." Godfrey laughs a little. "And had even one of my friends been a Saracen, it might have been set better."

"It is a good nose, and I know a good nose when I see one." For a moment, it seems that the king is going to laugh, but he draws in a pained breath instead.

"If this is to be done, and you are to survive," Godfrey says, "I need to do it now." He hands Saladin a folded strip of leather from his bag and watches as Saladin bites down on it before nodding and closing his eyes.

As Saladin suspected, the knife is in the bone; were Godfrey more fanciful, he'd imagine he can hear it scraping as he pulls it out. In fact, all he can hear is Saladin's harsh breathing and the cry the king tries to keep buried in his throat. "Forgive me," he mutters roughly as the blade finally pulls free and Saladin chokes back another groan.

Once the knife is out, Godfrey quickly presses the wound closed before pressing the pad made of his shirt over it. As he reaches for Saladin's sash, the king rests his hand on the bandage. "I can hold it," he says, his voice faint and raspy.

"Press hard," Godfrey says pulling the sash free of Saladin's waist. "It needs stitching, but I haven't the skill or the tools for it," he adds, rewrapping the sash, this time over the bandage.

"I have physicians," Saladin says, attempting to raise an eyebrow.

"Then you should survive," Godfrey says, tying off the sash.

"_Inshallah_," Saladin replies calmly.

_As God wills it,_ Godfrey translates almost automatically. "I shall pray that it is so," he says, quickly stuffing his things back into his saddlebag. Now that the wound has been dealt with to the best of his ability, he needs to be on his way. Or so he thinks until he takes a look at Saladin, who is noticeably pale. Letting the bag fall back to the ground, he reaches for the king's arm, intending to help him up.

"No," Saladin says. "You do not need to help me any more. To do so ... it would become known that you were here."

"It is known that I am here," Godfrey says, tilting his head in the king's direction.

"Your dedication to the ideals of your Christian knighthood do you credit," Saladin says. "But it could prove embarrassing for both myself and your king, to say nothing of yourself, if anyone else knew you were here. Go. I am strong enough to find help now."

Although it would be difficult to imagine two more different men, Saladin's voice holds the same note of command that Godfrey is accustomed to hearing from his own king and he bows his head. "I will, at the very least, leave you the lantern," he says, rising to saddle his horse.

"Thank you," Saladin says. And then, when Godfrey is ready to leave, the king looks up at him. "Thank you," he says again and this time Godfrey knows he's being thanked for more than the lantern.

"I hope we shall meet again under more pleasant circumstances, my lord," Godfrey says.

"_Inshallah,_" Saladin says again. "But I do hope He wills it."

* * *

"You could have let him die," Tiberias says, scowling.

"No, I couldn't have," Godfrey replies, taking a long drink of wine before unbuckling his sword belt. "And if I had? Who's to say that one of his sons will be as reasonable as he? We know him; we don't even know which of his sons will succeed him, let alone what their policies will be."

"And they say that I'm the clever one," Tiberias says, watching with eager eyes as Godfrey pulls off his tunic and then the thin silk tunic under it.

"To be truthful, I only thought of that argument as I rode back here," Godfrey admits. "I didn't kill him because it would have been the wrong thing to do."

"I knew that," Tiberias says, moving close and running his hand down Godfrey's chest. "You're a better man than I, Godfrey of Ibelin."

"And you're a wiser man than I, Tiberias of Tripoli," Godfrey says, closing his eyes. _And, God help us, but both of us are sinners._ It matters more to him than it does to Tiberias, Godfrey knows. Tiberias has found himself a confessor who goes through the motions, while Godfrey's own confessor has never heard of this from Godfrey himself, although Godfrey is sure the man's eyes see what Godfrey cannot say.

_How could I confess when I have no intention of true repentance?_ he asks himself yet again. And then those long, clever fingers are pulling his breeches off and Tiberias' mouth -- as eloquent in silence as it is in speech -- drives all thought from him.

Later, when they are both sated and the light in the room has been reduced to a few candles, Tiberias goes up on one elbow to look down at Godfrey. "So, other than learning that you can best the King of the Saracens in a knife fight, did this foolish expedition of yours yield anything?"

Crossing the desert, going from oasis to oasis, Godfrey had had some time to think.

"We say _Deus Volunt,_ or 'God wills it,'" he finally says, his voice soft as he fights sleep. "The Saracens ... the Muslims, say _inshallah_ which means 'if God wills it.' It matters, that difference. I don't know how much, but it does matter."

But before Tiberias can figure out how to reply, Godfrey is asleep.

_-end-_

**Author's Note:**

> As I say above, all three of these men did exist. Historically, "Godfrey" the father of Balian of Ibelin was actually named Barisen of Ibelin (also sometimes known as Balian or Balian the Elder), and Tiberias was Raymond III of Tripoli. Saladin, on the other hand, has always been known in the West by that name, although his name was actually Salah al Din. But I digress. In the film, Saladin tells Nasir that Godfrey of Ibelin "almost killed me in the Lebanon." I'm not sure what was considered "the Lebanon" in those days, so I shifted this to Damascus, which is in Syria.
> 
> I actually set out to write Godfrey/Saladin but alas, they wouldn't go there. So the story and I floundered around a bit until I realized that I'd just had Saladin say _inshallah_, at which point it all came together. Many thanks to Darkrose and Helens78 for the wonderful beta work.


End file.
